For the Trees
by Atlantia
Summary: Will's always thought love was supposed to be just like in stories, just like his parents. It's not supposed to be difficult. Sometimes though all it takes is a different point of view to make difficult become easy. WILL x WARREN


I wrote this like 2 years ago now for the Yuletide Challenge. I was (and still am) a little in love with the movie

The first time I saw it I just thought it was a great piece of classic Disney – not too serious, yet carrying a message. I mean we've all (at one stage) been the kid at school that didn't fit in, even if eventually we went on to better things, and although the story is completely clichéd it's still a great one – Cinderella and all that

On top of that, Warren is adorable and Will is just the cutest thing ever, and when I first saw a slash pairing of the two it was instant love.

Anyone who's ever read my LJ would know that I have a thing for pairings that face adversity… there's no reason to read otherwise. I mean Will and Layla? It's EASY! (I don't mean the writing, so put away those pitchforks Will/Layla fans, I just mean the pairing). There's no real effort involved for them to end up together – the movie handed it to you on a silver platter.

Will and Warren though… the son of your fathers greatest enemy? Not only that but one of the father's is like the world's greatest superhero and all around man's man? Plus… Gay superhero?

Anyway… enough blabbering. I decided to post this because I was going through getting ready to do some more writing (work's slowing down in the lead up to Xmas) and saw it sitting there, alone and unloved LOL.

I can't remember if it got much of a response for Yuletide… I think it might have been a bit lukewarm, Will's a little OOC I think, which might explain why, but I still like it. It's a one-shot though, so no sequels will be forthcoming. Unless I get bored and decide to write one. I've been going through an inspirational dry spot at the moment which has led to me feeling like writing little single chapter stories as opposed to big long ones. Let's see what Xmas does to me.

Oh and you know what… I'm not going to explain the title… but a shiny single chapter or story to the person who gets it.

**For the Trees.**

Ever since he'd been a young boy, with tales and stories of monsters and maidens, Will had always expected that love was something that struck you like lightning - energetic, vital and totally unexpected. According to legend you were supposed to be left breathless and gasping, shocked and amazed at the mind blowing epiphany that somehow blew the cobwebs from your thoughts and made everything in the world amazingly clear. It was supposed to be lifting, brightening and make your troubles seem suddenly insignificant next to the wonder of what you had.

At least that was what the books all said, what all the movies and cartoons portrayed. It was a promise made by author after author, film after film, from Disney to Lord of the Rings. Love was supposed to be something transcendent and beautiful. With so much of it crammed in his face, how else was a young and impressionable mind expected to see it? After all, his parent's story was much the same, worthy of a movie itself most likely, if one hadn't already been made.

He could still remember the first time his father had told it to him, when he was barely old enough to even understand what heroes were and that his parents were among them. Sitting there on a frosty Christmas evening, he had listened as the senior Stronghold weaved the tale of Royal Pain and her pacifier, threats to the world and dire straights for a hero, captured by the villain. His mother had been quietly cooking in the next room, a gentle smile on her face as she no doubt remembered exactly what his father was describing. It was almost clichéd enough to make even Hollywood movie writers blanch, but inside his mind this memory was inviolate, perfect and preserved.

This was what love was meant to be.

He'd learnt, as he'd grown up, that most people were weirded out by hearing their parents talk about relationships, the implications that they somehow found each other attractive in the same ways that young people did was unsettling. Indeed, now that he was older Will did feel that way most of the time, particularly when his father would go into slightly too much detail about something or other the two of them had done during a mission in their younger days.

But there was something about that one particular memory, where they had ceased being father and son, and become storyteller and audience, that still captivated his heart and mind even to this day. There had been such a vibrant passion in the words, an energy and elation when speaking about the woman that would become his wife. It had ignited a fire in Will that still burnt, a need to have that same perfection - eternal, simple and unconfused love at first sight.

Will wanted that, had wanted it for what now seemed like an eternity. When he'd met Gwen he thought he'd actually found it, a perfect first love that set music playing in his ears and sparkles across his vision. It was finally the real thing. At least he thought it was. In the end it had turned out to be no more special than any other teenage crush, a brief flaring of emotion brought on by hormones and the ache to find someone.

The promises the stories all made were lies.

He was starting to realise as he got older and (hopefully) wiser, that the kind of thing described by his father was unusual in most people. For the majority there would be no tolling of bells or angels singing when they met a new love. It was the exception rather than the rule. Instead most would develop like a slowly opening flower, a gradually building flame, something that started off as barely a spark but eventually grew to an inferno. Like a rose the end result could be a thing of beauty, but like a fire it could burn your world down around you.

What he'd had with Layla had been like the blossom of something perfect, two friends who knew each other inside and out coming together and taking their relationship to the next level. It had seemed… Logical. Reasonable. Expected. Safe… He and Layla were friends, buddies, comrades in arms. They'd grown up together, seen and done everything together, and while that made the foundations of a wonderful friendship, it had taken someone else to even point out to him that one party in that friendship wanted more.

"_Dude, you're so stupid. She's totally in to you."_

The voice was as real as if the speaker was actually there with him on the chilly rooftop and he shivered, wrapping his arms around himself as though he could ward off the surge that passed through him as easily as the cool evening wind.

He and Layla hadn't lasted - a few weeks. Long enough for him to realise his heart wasn't in it.

He hadn't known at first that anything was wrong, he had nothing else to compare it to after all, but there had always been something, a small constant ache in his chest everytime they kissed, that told him this wasn't right. He didn't see Layla that way, no matter how strongly his mind told him that, logically, their relationship made sense. It was like the end of a movie, a picture perfect final scene that allowed the audience to go home feeling that loose ends had been tied up. The friends had come full circle, the hero had got the girl. In real life things were rarely that simple. When he'd realised that being with Layla didn't bring on the fireworks he'd expected he'd brushed it aside, telling himself that it was just because of the transition from friend to girlfriend. It was just something he had to get used to. He'd thought he could come to love Layla as more than a sister and confidant, to see her as the young vibrant woman she was…

But it hadn't happened.

The breakup had not gone well. Not that he'd really expected it to. Layla had honestly been surprised, shocked that this evolution of their friendship was not reciprocated. Tears streaming down her face she had begged to know why, for him to give her some sort of explanation other than that he simply couldn't see her that way. He hadn't been able to provide her with one. He couldn't tell her that every kiss felt like a betrayal of their friendship. That every time he held her and their lips touched it only meant he was deceiving her yet again into thinking they had a future together. She meant too much to him to do that to her, and for some reason he knew she would never mean to him what he obviously did to her.

Eventually, after the crying and hugging had been over, after the screaming and half hearted blows had subsided, she'd wanted to know if there was something she'd done, something she _could_ have done, to fix it. He'd at least been able to give her that comfort, the knowledge that there truthfully was nothing either could have done to save their relationship; that he simply couldn't be with her.

She'd come to accept it, hours after he'd nervously told her they were over, to acknowledge that it was something she would just have to live with. He'd felt guilty about it as she'd walked out of the front door, the knowledge that in order to alleviate his own burden he'd placed it on to someone else instead. After all, if one of them had to live without love why shouldn't it be him? It wasn't her fault.

He could have pretended he loved her, carried on as though nothing was wrong and just lived with the sense of wrongness that came with that. He knew it would have been an empty relationship though, and with that would have come the understanding that he didn't love her, and she would end up hating him. It was far better that they end it, even if that meant not speaking to each other for almost three weeks now. He knew it was just Layla's way of coping; that she wasn't trying to cut him out of her life, so he wasn't going to push. He understood that sometimes you just needed time and space.

Then again, if he hadn't gone out looking for time and space he wouldn't have been in the situation he was now…

"_You're so stupid…"_

The soft voice shivered past him once more on a breath of air and he hugged his chest as he hesitantly agreed with it.

He was monumentally stupid.

He couldn't love Layla because it seemed his heart had somehow already fallen in love with someone else.

It had been barely an hour since the realisation had come to him. Not with the euphoric high of love at first sight, but with the gut wrenching terror of unwanted love first realised.

This time there had been no need for someone to point it out to him, he had come to the knowledge himself, sitting, alone, at the paper lantern yet again, in spite of the fact that he hated Chinese food. Warren had been making a final round amongst the tables, collecting the soiled plates and napkins to be dropped off at the kitchen while Will nibbled half heartedly at a dry prawn cracker and waited for the other boy's shift to end.

Black and red hair had been tied up in the ponytail he usually wore it in while working, the dark, sleeveless tee baring the tanned flesh of his arms as the muscles flexed and bunched beneath the skin. Will had met the other boy's eyes as he turned toward the kitchen, feeling his mouth curl slightly upwards in a brief hint of a smile as the other rolled his eyes at the disgusting mess strewn across the table in front of him. Lips that Will didn't think he'd ever really noticed before twisted in a sarcastic grimace that was directed back at him with a hint of tolerance and fondness that the fire generating teen seemed to reserve for only those who could bother getting close to him.

He'd been frozen there, the cracker halfway to his mouth, when the understanding had first struck, the comprehension of why he kept coming back here, in spite of the fact that he never ate a thing.

The forgotten piece of food dropped to the table from nerveless fingers as that indefinable sense of wrongness he'd always felt resolved itself into something tangible. A million barely noticed memories flashed in front of his eyes, feelings, thoughts and actions that had seemed perfectly innocent at first became something entirely different.

The brief surge of panic he'd felt when Speed had tried to suffocate Warren during their first save the citizen.

The unexpected flash of guilt when he'd kissed Layla in the hallway for the first time.

The way he'd glanced out of the corner of his eyes when they'd been twirling in the sky outside the dance, looking for the figure in the daggy suit to see if he was watching.

The conversation Layla had told him about not long after they'd got together came crashing down on him with horrifying clarity.

"_So, then there was this time in first grade. You know how you grow lima beans in school? Well, Will could not figure out why mine was growing so quickly, it was driving him crazy. So finally I took mercy on him and I told him about my powers! We've been best friends ever since."_

"_And falling for him, was that before or after the Lima beans?"_

The knowledge made him almost physically sick and he'd hurriedly hurled down some cash onto the table before bolting for the door, bouncing carelessly off the front doorjamb before spilling out onto the street.

Shit! How long had he been in love with Warren Peace?

He'd felt the blood drain from his face and he swiftly bent over lest the scant scraps of food he'd snacked on in the restaurant revisit him so soon. His breaths had been gasped in long drags of the cool evening air, feeling the slight stinging in his eyes that meant that tears were imminent.

He'd cursed himself a million times, mumbling profanities under his breath before turning around and shoving his fist through the side of a nearby mailbox.

"You are so _fucking_ stupid, Will." He'd slowly pulled his fist free of the destroyed metal box, staring at it as though his hand was somehow going to tell him he wasn't.

"I think I've told you that before Stronghold. Finally decide to admit it?" The voice had been as dangerous and nonchalant as ever, only a year of friendship allowing him to pick up the barest trace of concern underneath the callous words. He desperately hadn't wanted to turn around to face the boy, hadn't wanted to risk it, lest he somehow just confirm what he really wished wasn't true. So he'd stood there, staring as he slowly opened and closed his palm, letting the silence stretch out between them until he heard the crunch of sneakers on asphalt and felt the darker teen moving closer.

"Are you ok Stronghold? I mean you just beat up a mailbox." The first of the tears had traced a delicate trail over his cheek at the apprehension in that soft voice.

"You're here nearly every night, you never eat anything but a couple of crackers and fortune cookies, then you leave. I'm no psychologist but it seems you have some serious issues." The voice had dropped slightly to a husky, almost purring sound that Will was sure, before this moment, had never sounded quite as sexy as it did right then.

"Is this about you and flower power?" The irony of the statement had been almost enough to set him laughing, the idea that he was being comforted by the person who it turned out had been the cause behind their break up in the first place.

"For god's sake Stronghold turn around already." The sudden warmth of the hand gripping his shoulder had made him gasp, and he'd spun around in a desperate effort to dislodge the heat that seemed to be seeping straight through him.

"Jesus Christ, Warren, I'm fine ok?" He'd batted the hand away, refusing to meet the eyes that were watching him, in some sort of childish hope that the dark of the evening would conceal the damp tracks of his tears.

"What the fuck Stronghold, are you crying?." Anger surged up and he'd suddenly wanted to punch out to push the other away, furious that the cause of his tears should be so oblivious to what was going on. Instead he'd clenched his hands into fists at his sides, knowing what a careless blow from his super strength could do to someone.

"Yes I'm f-ing crying Warren, are you happy now?" Several seconds passed while he'd stared angrily at the pavement and their feet before the older boy let out a heaving sigh.

"Shit. I'm sorry Will. I didn't mean it to sound like that." In spite of his anger at the situation and what it could do to their friendship, in spite of his hatred for himself, the uttering of his first name had never been such a beautiful thing until it had passed those lips. It had been like the anger had drained straight out of him to be replaced with surprise, and his eyes had shot up to stare at the apologetic face barely a foot away.

Under the harsh brilliance of the streetlamps the sharp lines of Warren's face stood out in unrealistically brilliant contrast, his normally tanned skin seeming even darker in the gloom. The neat ponytail was slightly loose from the brief scuffle and several of the long black strands had broken free of their confinement to hang in front of what Will was realising were incredibly deep brown eyes.

"You wanna talk about it?" He'd only been dimly aware of the conciliatory words, his mind twisting the statement to apply to his own thoughts, as though Warren had somehow been answering his mental analysing of the other boy's face. In a slight daze he'd shaken his head, his hand rising almost of its own accord until it ever so lightly brushed over the soft cheek in front of him, sliding the loose hair to the side before cupping it delicately behind an ear and gently tracing along the line of Warren's jaw.

"Stronghold…?" Will didn't think he'd ever heard of anything surprising the other boy until that moment, the shock in that voice hadn't even been there when it turned out Gwen Grayson was Royal Pain.

"Oh fuck…" It had crashed down on him then exactly what he'd been doing and he'd swiftly taken a rapid step back as his eyes seemed to open to the size of dinner plates.

"Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck." He kept moving backwards, one foot behind the other, watching as those brown eyes swirled with some unknown emotion.

"I'm so… I didn't… It's not…" A thousand excuses ran through his head, each one swiftly discarded, until all that was left was to turn tail and run.

"I, I have to go." And he had. He hadn't waited for any possible answer, hadn't bothered to give any explanation. He knew what it must have looked like, what it _was_. He'd never been very good at hiding his emotions, the years had taught him that lesson very well and he had no doubt that what he'd been thinking had been written all over his face; how he'd enjoyed the way Warren had said his name, the way the other teen had shown concern, the warmth the fire starter had seemed to emanate. It would have all been there for the viewing, and he was sure Warren had seen it all.

He'd barely made it home before the tears set in full force, the irony of an invincible person being broken by emotion not lost on him. Eventually the tears had run dry, whether because the human body could only cry for so long or because the chill night air had dried them up he wasn't sure. He'd fallen into a kind of stupor then, just sitting and watching, not really taking anything in or paying attention. It had taken him half an hour to shake himself out of that funk, starting in on his analysis on where exactly his life had so completely fucked up.

_Ever since he'd been a young boy, with tales and stories of monsters and maidens, Will had always expected that love was something that struck you like lightning - energetic, vital and totally unexpected._

A sound from below disturbed his recollection of the evening and he watched as his dad's car pulled quietly into the driveway, the lights switching off as the doors cracked open. His parents were returning from some local fundraising dinner, this one attended as just Steve and Josie Stronghold, realtors. The original Stronghold 2 had taken the night off.

Bathed in only the faint glow of the stars and the dim garden lighting, his mother stood and waited as his dad walked around the front of the car, the horn tooting softly once as the lock button was pressed. In the middle of the front path the invincible Commander slid a gentle arm around the slim waist of his waiting wife and whispered something too quietly to hear into the curved shell of one of Jetstream's ears.

"Steve! Honestly. Anyone would think you were still an oversexed teenager." Their laughter rang out into the empty street as they approached the front door, the sound abruptly cut off as the timber closed and locked behind them. He couldn't help the sigh that escaped him as another, now muffled laugh, managed to make it through his bedroom door and out the window, swiftly followed by a just as noisy shushing sound.

That was what love was meant to be.

"You know we'll never be like that don't you? We'll never have what they have." The sound of that sultry voice, bare inches from his ear, almost caused him to fall off the roof in panic. Only a searing hand grabbing onto his arm kept him from an embarrassing tumble, and he spun around to meet incredibly close chocolate eyes.

"What…?" The echoing of his own thoughts of the last hour was almost uncannily accurate, but a finger gently pressed against his mouth, silencing anything further he might have thought to say.

"Love isn't science Will, it isn't one of Medulla's classes. You can't quantify and measure it. Love is different for everyone." They were close enough for him to feel each puff of heated breath as it ghosted across his lips, the wry lilt of the other's mouth easily visible even in the faint moonlight.

"That doesn't mean that what other people have is somehow less, or inferior to your parents. All love is equal Will, it's simply different versions of exactly the same thing." There was a moment of silence as brown eyes seemed to stare deeply into his own, almost as though they were searching for an answer somewhere inside.

"We'll never be like they are. You understand that don't you?" The finger lifted from his lips, the tingle lingering even after the digit was gone, like an amputee claiming he could still feel a lost limb. His mouth moved soundlessly for several moments as he tried desperately to come up with words, his voice eventually emerging as a croaky whisper.

"We…?" The purring chuckle that followed his incoherent word stood the hair on the back of his neck on end, a shiver travelling down his spine like a jolt of electricity.

"Stronghold, you are so stupid." It was barely a whisper, a faint breath of air that seemed to speak the words without actually having to voice them; then Warren's firm body was pressed up against his, strong arms slid around him, those sarcastic lips descended, and any doubt about love was promptly forgotten.

_Fin~_


End file.
